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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25232518">Will You Join Us?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenporusty/pseuds/kenporusty'>kenporusty</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>ATEEZ (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>ATEEZ Storyline Event, Anxiety, Depression, Gen, I didn't make the final cut, Suicide, Take care of yourself Atiny, drugs and alcohol, in Wooyoung's chapter, so here it is, trigger warnings for Jongho</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:01:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,378</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25232518</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenporusty/pseuds/kenporusty</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight boys, eight narratives.</p>
<p>A man in a black fedora.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Will You Join Us?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this for the Storyline Event.</p>
<p>No major warnings except in Jongho's story. Anxiety, depression, and implied suicide. Jongho's got unnecessarily dark.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>-Resolution-</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Dad. <em> Dad. </em> Stop the car.” San said forcefully.</p>
<p>“Are you ill?” His father asked.</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Then you’ll have to wait.”</p>
<p>San crossed his arms over his chest, staring limply out the windshield of the family car. He slouched in his seat, but didn’t dare put his feet on the dash. This was his father’s car, not his friends. His friends who had no respect for personal property, who didn’t care what happened to them. He <em> had </em> to have respect for this car, as long as he lived under his father’s roof, and used his father’s property. He had to be respectful.</p>
<p>They came to a stop. A traffic light that San knew took way too long. Out by the warehouse district. He looked at the light, the surrounding city, his father. He looked fondly at his father, but he had to do this. Before his father could react, he unbuckled his seatbelt, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.</p>
<p>Without looking back, he walked away.</p>
<p>The life he had, the one full of respect and responsibility and perfect grades slipped away as his father processed what happened. Time slowed, but his footsteps sped up as he ran away. Ran from his father, his former life. He could hear him shouting and cars honking as the light changed, but the Kia remained in the street, hazard lights blinking. He thought he could hear his father on the phone with the police. Or his mother. She would cry, he would cry, they would hold each other and sob, but what’s done is done.</p>
<p>He didn’t think about his future, only his now. He didn’t think about how he had no shelter, no dinner, only a few thousand won in his wallet: a gift from his father for passing his latest exam. Thinking of his former life, the one he hated, he pulled out his wallet as he ran, ripped the money from the leather and threw it away.</p>
<p>He would make it. New beginnings.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The man in the fedora watched San as he ran away. He held an hourglass in his hand, the sand pooled in the bottom half. As San ran, a single grain of sand slipped backward, up to the neck between the two halves, hovering there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>-Choice-</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wooyoung watched himself in the mirror. He brushed his hair back, poked at the bags under his eyes. His uniform hung on the back of his chair. His mother always scolded him for not hanging it carefully. It would crease and wrinkle, she would say, and he should take pride in not just his casual clothes, but his school clothes. The image he presented would take him farther than any grades ever could, she would insist. His mother usually spoke the truth.</p>
<p>His phone vibrated; his friend asking him if he was still coming. Yes, yes he was.</p>
<p>The easy way would be to say “no,” to decline the invitation, and go to school like everything was normal. But was it normal? He wasn’t so sure. He would skip school to be with these friends. His new friends, better friends. Friends that could help him be a better person. He was young, and full of teenage bravado. What was one day against the rest of his life?</p>
<p>Stomach churning with nerves and guilt and the fact that he hadn’t eaten yet, he poked his head out of his room. His family wasn’t around; they were either watching TV before leaving for work or school, or still asleep. His brother was just discharged from the army, and wanted to sleep as long as he wanted to now. Wooyoung grabbed his backpack, left his uniform on the chair, and snuck out before anyone could say anything. He took the stairs two at a time, jumping the last few to the concrete landing. Instead of taking the usual route along the narrow side-street that ran between the buildings, he immediately tried to blend in with the crowds on the busy main road. When everyone looked the same, no one stood out. He could easily pass for any young man in the crowd.</p>
<p>He pulled out his phone and followed the map to the meeting point - a spot by the docks - where the containers from ships were stacked high before being loaded on trucks or trains and distributed to the rest of the country. He stopped to study the map, and was almost run into by a boy in a blue sweatshirt that looked like he was running from something.</p>
<p>Seems like he gave up on the easy way, as well.</p>
<p>His friends, his “friends,” told him how to find them through the maze of stacks. They were somewhere deep, and he heard them before he saw them. Smelled them, too. Music was playing a few clicks too loud, not loud enough to alert security, and there was a stench of alcohol and marijuana in the air. Wooyoung was greeted with shouts and a can of beer. The easy way would be to turn around and leave. Put the beer down, and walk away, go to school like a normal boy.</p>
<p>The thing about beer is it tastes awful. He took a drink, wiped his mouth, and waved the can around as he talked. His voice scaled up, his laughter got louder. And if he waved the can around enough, no one would notice he wasn’t drinking. This was true. No one noticed. This technique worked for any food as well. If it looks like you’re eating, no one will notice you’re not actually eating. Bad life advice, but it worked for him. At least where vegetables were concerned.</p>
<p>His friend stumbled to him, congratulating him on finally skipping school to be one of the cool kids. His friend was very drunk very early in the morning. He laughed awkwardly. Right, one of the cool kids. Cool kids who broke the law and played hooky. Hey, can you hang on for a second? He left, pulling out his phone again. He dialed a number and spoke as quietly as possible. This wasn’t fun. This was illegal. He smelled like beer and weed, and he would pay the price, but that’s what needed to happen.</p>
<p>They scattered when security shouted at them. Only Wooyoung stood his ground, answered all the questions, gave as many names as possible, and waited for his parents to come collect him. He would be scolded, grounded, lose all privileges, but that was worth it. Taking the hard way wasn’t necessarily the best way.</p>
<p>From now on, he would focus on redeeming himself, putting his best foot forward, and presenting the best possible image to the world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The man in the fedora watched thoughtfully. This one would be trouble. This one had a moral compass. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>-Diary-</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> “Dear diary, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Still no dreams. There’s been no dreams for months. Years. I know why. My parents can’t afford my dreams. I have to have a scholarship for my school. My clothes are second-hand. Dreams are too lavish for the poor.” </em>
</p>
<p>Mingi looked through his diary. Every day was the same entry. He looked at the old diary. Every entry was the same.</p>
<p>Dreams are too lavish for the poor.</p>
<p>When he laid his head down on his thin pillow in the one bedroom apartment his parents paid too much for and went to sleep, his mind was blank. He barely fit on the floor mattress, but he curled on himself so he wouldn’t get cold at night. His parents tried to insist he take the bedroom. As a young man he needed his privacy, they said. They would sleep on the floor, they insisted, but he turned the insistence back on them. They had no course but to agree. Mingi always was a good boy, one who listened and paid attention.</p>
<p>Even if his nighttime lacked the pleasant dreamscapes of those with even a little more money to their name. Even the other students on scholarships dreamed. He could see it in their faces. They looked less tired, less haggard. He was the only one who didn’t dream, but he wasn’t to be pitied. Someday he would earn his dreams. Someday, if he worked hard enough, he would dream, and when he did, it would be pleasant and restful.</p>
<p>Mingi yearned for the day he would dream. He saved every little bit of money he could, what he didn’t give to his hard-working parents who barely made rent. He had a little box hidden in the cabinet in the kitchen, underneath a pan his mother barely used anymore. He would drop what pocket change he had into that box, luxuriating in the sound of the coins rattling against wood.</p>
<p>
  <em> “Dear diary, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Still no dreams. There’s been no dreams for months. Years. I know why. My parents can’t afford my dreams. I have to have a scholarship for my school. My clothes are second-hand. Dreams are too lavish for the poor.” </em>
</p>
<p>He found a 500 Won coin on the street and gripped it happily as he made his way home to deposit it into his dream box. He would study until his mother made him turn off the lights to save money, and study more at daybreak before leaving for school.</p>
<p>He was a student on a scholarship, he had to maintain his good grades. He had to work hard. When he was old enough, he would get a job and work hard with his parents, and maybe then he would dream.</p>
<p>When a classmate asked him, “Mingi-yah, what are your dreams?” he looked at her and replied that he didn’t dream.</p>
<p>“Everyone has a dream! One day I will be a television host, maybe even for the national news. How exciting will that be? You know, Mingi-yah, you’re very good at finding things. You could be a detective!”</p>
<p>Mingi looked down at his threadbare shirt and the patched pants.</p>
<p><em> “Dreams like that are out of reach for a poor man like me,” </em> he thought. Then he thought that maybe he was taking the concept of dreaming too literally. That he could have dreams without being asleep. He could look forward to a life worth living, one of enjoyment and not toil. He could drift off at his desk and think about being a detective.</p>
<p>But no, he had to study, that was important, but he would stay after school and research his future today.</p>
<p>Walking home he found a few thousand Won on the ground, and no one to claim the money. He pocketed the bills and put them in his secret box.</p>
<p>
  <em> “Dear diary, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Last night I had a dream. It was short and I woke up in a cold sweat. A man with a mask and an hourglass watched me. There was sand between the two halves, drifting back and forth. I know one of those grains was mine. I can’t make heads or tails of the dream. Maybe it wasn’t a real dream. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “True dreams are too lavish for the poor.” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>-Memory-</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Seonghwa gripped the bracelet so tightly it dug into his skin. The pain reminded him he wasn’t in a dream. He was real, and the bracelet was one of the few things she left behind.</p>
<p>The bracelet and her scent. Her scent that permeated everything. Something fresh and floral: soap and perfume and hair product. He blinked as things faded again, and he squeezed his fist. He had to remind himself he wasn’t in a dream. Everything faded, but returned with the sting of the bracelet pinching his skin. When everything started to fade, it started at the edges of his vision, forming a tunnel. He felt numb, but determined.</p>
<p>She left with no name, no address, no phone number. No social media handles. But he would find her. If he’s determined enough, he’d find her. He had to.</p>
<p>Fade. Squeeze. Pain. Return. A cyclical routine as he stumbled through the streets. He would hear the swish of clothing and catch a scent that made him remember her. He would turn but she wasn’t there. The scent of her soap, the one left on his gym towel that he loaned her the time they were caught out in the rain and she showered at his house. The scent of her perfume, gardenia and tea, that filled his nose as he tried to study behind her after hours at school. The scent of her hair product that kept her hair beautifully smooth and shiny that remained on his mother’s beat-up sofa after that time she napped at his house. They were up so late studying, and she couldn’t stay awake. He’d covered her with a blanket and went up to his room. He was, after all, a gentleman.</p>
<p>
  <em> Fade. Squeeze. Pain. Return. </em>
</p>
<p>There was no name, no address, no phone number. He was determined. How had he gone through school, gotten close enough to drop the formalities, (<em> “Seonghwa-yah!” she would say sharply </em>) and even began making plans to attend the same University without knowing her name or her address?</p>
<p>The pain didn’t cause a return. The fade continued. He had to keep going. He wasn’t dreaming. He had to keep going. Her scent, and her bracelet. That’s all he had. She’d left the bracelet at his house after a weekend cram session. They’d both passed the exam and celebrated with samgyupsal.</p>
<p>Now his vision was greyed out in his peripheral.</p>
<p>Step.</p>
<p>Fade.</p>
<p>Squeeze. Nothing.</p>
<p>Step.</p>
<p>Fade.</p>
<p>Squeeze. Nothing.</p>
<p>Step.</p>
<p>Squeeze.</p>
<p>Step.</p>
<p>Nothing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The man in the black fedora watched the teenager wander the streets, determined to do something, to find something. Another grain of sand slid between the two halves of his glass to join the rest. The lost boys, caught between one life and the next, stuck in an endless youth.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>-His Brother-</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His brother was more ambitious than he was. His brother had a dream. His brother would succeed, with or without him. So his brother’s dream became his dream. He wasn’t a parasite, or a leech, his relationship was more symbiotic. There was give, there was take; his brother would ask for advice, he would give advice. They worked together, and they worked together well. Their parents watched the two boys at the table, laptops out, typing out thoughts and ideas with pride. Their idea would succeed and they would make their parents proud. Their parents would go to the shops and social gatherings and boast about their two sons who managed to put their sibling animosity behind them and work together.</p>
<p>Yunho bounded into his brother’s room to wake him. They had to leave for school, but he wanted to discuss a detail before they had to eat breakfast and leave. The bed was empty. His brother wasn’t already up, carefully combing his hair and straightening his uniform. His brother wasn’t in the kitchen with their mother, or the dining room or living room with their father.</p>
<p>No, son, I haven’t seen your brother. Perhaps he left before you woke up. You should try to rise earlier. His ears were filled with sound but his brain took it’s time to process the words.</p>
<p>His brother was gone, without him. Just like before. Just like before he became part of this dream. Maybe he should have left his brother’s dream as his own?</p>
<p>He messaged his brother. His brother usually responded.</p>
<p>
  <em> Seen. </em>
</p>
<p>He waited. His mother sent him off to get dressed for school before eating breakfast.</p>
<p>
  <em> Seen. </em>
</p>
<p>He ate mechanically, and walked robotically. Maybe his brother was busy with other friends, or his study group. He stopped at the school gates, having walked there alone for the first time in months.</p>
<p>
  <em> Seen. </em>
</p>
<p>He looked into his brother’s classroom, but was shooed away by the stern teacher. The bell rang and he hurried to his own classroom, and fell into his seat before his own teacher took attendance. His father packed his lunch today, and he ate as mechanically as he walked.</p>
<p>
  <em> Seen. </em>
</p>
<p>His parents didn’t seem worried when he told them about his brother’s disappearance. It was like he wasn’t his brother, but a good friend. Yunho ate his dinner, and instead of studying, he snuck out of the house.</p>
<p>
  <em> Seen. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Hyung is writing. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Seen. </em>
</p>
<p>He walked, step-by-step, one foot in front of the other. Steps quickened. He was running, darting between the nighttime crowds in the streets eating snacks from the street stalls or shopping before it got too late and everything closed.</p>
<p><em> “What is the point if you disappear?” </em> Yunho questioned. His brother’s dream was now his dream, but now it was meaningless. Without his brother, there was nothing. Why go on? Why have this ambitious dream? His brother was gone, and disappeared.</p>
<p>What was the point?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The man in the black fedora watched the kid in the orange jacket run, looking for something. This was his decision. He walked out the door without waiting. Now, it was lost to him.</p>
<p>
  <em> Seen. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “Sorry. I was out all day at Jinsong’s. We have a class play soon. You’re not home though?” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> Seen. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <b>-Time-</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Time felt funny. It wasn’t a smooth flow, but rough and bumpy. Yeosang could put his hand out and he could feel the texture as the minutes passed. Like the cartridge in a music box that determined the next note or harmony in the melody.</p>
<p>E major.</p>
<p>C. D. G.</p>
<p>E major.</p>
<p>C. D. G.</p>
<p>But time wasn’t the reason he didn’t look up at the sky. The feel of time was inconsequential. Everyone gushed about the stars in the night sky, about how pretty they were, about how they were organizing a road trip to the mountains to escape the city lights to see the stars shine as brightly as possible. When Yeosang looked up the stars he saw a blank sky, black or grey or a deep blue. Not even the moon broke through the blank space above him. He remembered he could see the stars as a child, before they moved. His mother would take him and his sister out to look through their telescope to find Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus. On clear nights he found the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters. Without the telescope he could see what was dubbed the Big Dipper, the body of a great bear.</p>
<p>When they moved, and he left his friends behind, the sky began to fade. He made a few new friends, but he was teased for his lisp and his intense face. He begged his father for speech therapy so he could talk like the other boys, and begged his mother to help fix his face. Could he use her makeup to make his eyebrows less severe? Both requests were vehemently denied. He was put on this world perfect as he is, and should not strive to fix it.</p>
<p>The night sky faded a little more.</p>
<p>To avoid the empty expanse, he watched the ground. He watched his feet move along the pavement. He learned to watch his surroundings while watching the ground. The night sky was a reminder of what he once had, back in his hometown. He had friends, and family, and time didn’t feel as rough.</p>
<p>Here it flowed like sandpaper, and he felt his skin abraded by every minute.</p>
<p>With every step the sky faded a little more.</p>
<p>“Yeosang-i! Come play!” Someone shouted.</p>
<p>Yeosang looked up, but the sky was a hollow monster that loomed behind the other student. He shuddered, braced himself against the feelings, and looked down.</p>
<p>“Yeosang-ah, look up and see the beautiful stars,” a friend of his mother’s said.</p>
<p>Yeosang looked up, and felt himself drifting towards the numb blankness. If only the numbness would consume him to stop the feel of time slipping away from him.</p>
<p>There was nothing up there for him, why couldn’t they understand?</p>
<p>He watched the ground, the splotches on the concrete forming his own starscape.</p>
<p>E major.</p>
<p>C. D. G.</p>
<p>E major.</p>
<p>C. D. G.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Another grain of sand slipped in the hourglass. There were no dreams with this boy, but he was still lost, trapped in a prison.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>-Wanderings-</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jongho wandered in an aimless path around the perimeter of the school’s basketball court. The teams were done practicing for the day, the equipment not yet put away, and there he was, walking. One foot before the other, fingers dragging along the chain link fencing. The fence shook and rattled with each step, a strange rhythm to his wanderings. He watched the ground, he wouldn’t look up. Looking up meant hope, looking forward towards the future, not dwelling on the past.</p>
<p>He’d lost him years ago, when he was too young to understand what was happening. His friend, once his best friend, isolated himself. Pushed everyone away, cried easily. He would drop into a crouch on the ground and put his head between his knees and take deep breaths. These attacks would be seemingly random, and everytime, with youthful ignorance, Jongho would tell him to just cheer up, to just smile. He would say to just get over it, everyone’s parents are angry with them at some point. His friend would get angry and lash out at him one second, then pretend everything was okay. He would smile and laugh like a normal boy and they would continue talking about playing on a professional sports team one day.</p>
<p>Then one day his friend just stopped. Stopped answering, stopped smiling, stopped talking. He told Jongho he loved him like a brother and tried to give him his little tablet that was a present from his parents. Jongho refused the gift, unwilling to take such a prized possession, but thank you for thinking of me. Shortly after, his friend stopped entirely and he disappeared. He was now gone from the world, and Jongho was set adrift.</p>
<p>Anxiety and depression. He now knew what those words meant, and if he had known as a boy he could have stopped his harsh words. He could have reached out to a friend suffering, but now it wasn’t possible. Was it?</p>
<p>With every step he chanted words he found on the internet. Someone posted on their blog that these words would weaken the walls between the dimensions, and somewhere there was a dimension where his friend still smiled honestly. He chanted the words and felt something change. The wind had shifted to blow the cool air in and chase away stuffy heat.</p>
<p>He sat down on a bench, surrounded by the basketballs the team didn’t put away and wondered where he could go. He didn’t feel like he could go on, until he noticed the basketballs were orange, not yellow. The words worked. He looked up. Everything looked the same, felt the same, but there was a hope in the air now. Wherever he was, he would figure out where to go. He would find his friend and laugh with him again.</p>
<p>He looked up and blinked back tears.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The man in the fedora saw another grain of sand move. Seven grains now drifted between the past and the future. This one, the seventh, would be the most useful if he can shred the boundaries between dimensions like tissue paper.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>-dream-</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em> “There are countless dimensions in this world.” </em>
</p>
<p>Hongjoong woke with a start, sitting up quickly in the dark. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa while studying. He rubbed his eyes, and blinked. He groped for something before realizing, right, his phone was in the other room. He couldn’t exactly remember what the man who spoke those words looked like, but he was dressed in black. Hat, shirt, jacket, face mask. Silver chains. The eyes looked familiar but he couldn’t place them. Like he’d seen them before, but from where?</p>
<p>His motions were slow, dreamlike as he sat up. His outline blurred in that weird way that only happens in the dream state.</p>
<p>
  <em> Lucid dreaming? </em>
</p>
<p>Of course he would be studying in his dreams.</p>
<p>He turned and noticed the object on the table. A glass figure eight, supported by wood rods, bracketed by wooden rounds. An hourglass. The sand mostly settled in the bottom half of the glass, but a few grains stuck in the neck, refusing to drop. He shook the hourglass, but the grains stubbornly remained.</p>
<p>Dreaming Hongjoong picked up the facedown notebook from the table. Inside was not what he expected. He expected to see his own sloppy handwriting from hurriedly taking notes while the teacher talked. He expected to see doodles in the margins, and notes to himself for later. He was not expecting a map of the world. A very mangled map of the world.</p>
<p>Greenland was enormous, and a circle drawn in the middle of the ice fields. South America was replaced by Antarctica, and Scandinavia was reduced to islands. The entire map was wrong. He flipped a page and the circle mark was replaced by a skull. He flipped another page, and the map was correct, printed off the internet, centered on the Pacific Ocean.</p>
<p>While he studied these maps, he failed to notice another grain of sand slipping to the neck of the hourglass. Seven grains now hung in limbo between the two halves, neither here nor there</p>
<p>
  <em> “There are countless dimensions in this world.” </em>
</p>
<p>What did that mean? How could that help his sleeping self?</p>
<p>
  <em> “Help them make their decisions.” </em>
</p>
<p>Okay, it was time to wake up, go back to reality, and maybe go to sleep in his bed.</p>
<p>The hourglass began to glow, dim at first, but brighter and brighter, flashing through hues of reds, oranges, yellows, blues, and white. Those seven grains of sand were swallowed by the rest of the sand, which began to flow backwards. The sand drifted upwards, filling the top half, pooling at the top of the glass. Hongjoong watched, transfixed.</p>
<p><em> “Open your eyes,” </em>a female voice said.</p>
<p><em> “Can you hear those voices?” </em> A distorted masculine voice asked.</p>
<p><em> “Every ship needs a captain.” </em> The man with the fedora said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Hongjoong woke with a start, sitting up quickly in the dark. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa while studying. He rubbed his eyes, and blinked. He groped for something, finding his phone buried between the sofa cushions. A text message from an unknown number.</p>
<p>
  <em> “Will you join us?” </em>
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